Welcome to LyricsTranslate!
Whether you're a new user, intending to become a user or have been on the site for a while, we'd like to suggest that you:
1. Read the Website Rules page.
2. Read the Frequently Asked Question page.
But those pages are far too long sometimes, so just remember these main ones:
1. Filthy, offensive, and obscene language and images are prohibited on the site, including usernames and profile pictures. That also extends to offending people based on their nationality, sexual orientation, skin color, religious beliefs, political views, etc. This is a multicultural and multinational website, so respect comes always in first place. No insults are allowed, except for within lyrics.
2. Lyrics that contain serious hate messages, violence propaganda, racism and aggressive discrimination are prohibited.
3. Don't add machine translations. If any translations similar to Google Translate are found, they will be unpublished and you will be warned if you keep publishing translations of such quality. Machine-made transliterations are also not allowed.
4. If you add a translation you haven't done yourself, or if your translation is based on another translation, give a source.
Our staff consists of the following roles:
🟦 Editors
🟩 Moderators
🟧 Administrators
* After a certain period of inactivity has passed, all staff will be placed under a 'retired' status and any prior access they had before will be removed.. Retired staff members can request this title if they wish to step down from their position or can ask to be placed as 'active' again.
* If the administrators have reason to believe and evidence to support their suspicions that a staff member is breaking the rules/abusing their position, they may and will remove them from their position. False accusations are taken into consideration and any complaints made about a staff member are investigated thoroughly.
* The staff, like all users, have a kind of "record" on them. Anything a staff member has done in the past is documented on both their record and on the record of all involved parties.
1. What is an editor?
a. A staff member who helps clean up pages (adding correct lyrics, adding working videos links, reporting content to moderators, interpreting [on behalf of another staff member or user])
2. What they can do:
a. Edit artist pages, song pages (adds correct lyrics, videos links, album/featuring artists/also performed by artists, removes incorrect information)
3. What they can't do:
a. Merge pages (artist pages, song pages, idioms)
b. Unpublish any pages
c. Edit a page that has been previously edited by another editor or a moderator (if the staff member who had previously edited something and they are a native/fluent speaker of the language the content is in, they will be asked to make any changes)
d. Edit the comments section (this includes removing, hiding, or closing comments)
e. Ban users or spammers
f. Have access to tools for changing authorship.
4. How can I contact an editor?
a. Click here. To speak to editors in a specific language, select the language on the page.
5. What is a moderator?
a. Support staff who respond to all inquiries, reports, complaints and intervene when necessary.
6. What they can do:
a. Edit pages [artist / song / collections / idioms / requests (translation/transcription) / threads ]
b. Unpublish [artist / song / collections / idioms / requests (translation/transcription) / comments / threads]
c. Republish previously unpublished pages
d. Ban users permanently (only applies to spammers), temporarily ban users (anywhere between 1 day to 90 days depending on the what a user has done).
e. Remove / give authorship
f. Close comments section, unpublish comments, hide all comments.
7. What they can't do
a. Make changes to the site's interface (by this we mean that any suggestions you make regarding the site's layout, new features, add/remove buttons and functionalities from menus is something we don't do, that is something that only the administrators can implement).
→ a1. However, a few moderators have been given credentials to translate the website interface. Here you'll find all users who work to make LT available into different languages.
b. Fix bugs / technical issues
c. Edit translations not made by them (exceptions: changes must be minor like changing a translation to the right language, capitalizing a title properly, reformatting to match the original lyrics if they have been changed recently, removing links that contain spam, advertising or content that violates the rules) and only if the user hasn't been active for a while and/or hasn't responded to a moderator's request (if their translation needs a source link, violates the rules or needs to be corrected).
d. Unpublish pages without letting a user know: the reason, how to amend it or offer assistance.
→ d1. We recently have been obliged to provide a reason to unpublish a page, else the tool won't let us do it. Reasons vary from duplicates to requests by translation's authors.
→ d2. There have been cases where lyrics and (more drastically) translations have been hidden from view with a message saying 'Lyrics removed on request of copyright holders'. This is not done by a moderator, it's automatic and only the administrators can do it. We unfortunately have no power to revert it.
→ d3. Course of action varies from moderator to moderator. In cases of stolen translations, a source is always provided to prove the translation was copied from somewhere, and as such the translation may or may not be unpublished.
e. Moderators have a private room to discuss things related to the site; that includes proposing suggestions given by users, up or downvoting them. It's up to the administrators to implement them or not based on technical difficulties.
f. Demote staff of their positions / promote users to a position
→ f1. However, at times administrators will contact moderators with a list of users that either promoted themselves or that they are considering for promotion, including suggestions made by other moderators. The team, as a whole, debates on whether a given user should or should not be given a promotion (several things are taken into account for a promotion: the time a user has been around, languages a user speaks, interactions with others, etc.). This applies for moderators and editors.
→ f2. Editors don't usually do that, but they can also vouch for possible new editors in their own private room.
→ f3. There have been cases where a newly promoted moderator was an editor. So, if you want to become a moderator, we recommend joining the editor's team and familiarizing yourself with the tools to start. However, it is not required.
8. How do I contact a Moderator?
a. Click here. Most Mods speak English at one level or another, but if you feel comfortable with talking to them in your language, just select a language in that page.
9. Who are Retired Mods/Editors?
If a staff member has been away/inactive for a long time (I think it's 6 months, but I'm not sure), they are automatically given the 'Retired' role. If user does come back to the website, this is reverted back to their former role. However, if an active staff member wants to take a temporary break from the team, they can ask Administration to give them a role change. They won't be able to use any Mod/Editor tools or use the private forums as such - so it's best if you do not contact them to talk about broken info etc. In the worst case scenario, Mods/Editors can step down from their positions as a whole and not become 'Retired' - becoming a Super Member at most again. Such has only happened a very few times.
10. What is an Administrator?
a. Individuals who run the site and the creators of LT
b. What they can do: Everything, including what Editors / Moderators do and what both can't do.
11. Who are the Administrators?
Three friends who lived in Ukraine created this website around 2008. They no longer live in their native country due to the ongoing crisis, but are still in contact with one another and still consider this website a personal project. They do not make any money out of LT, all income generated from advertising (which only shows for guests/users who aren't logged in) is used to pay for site and system maintenance. The three of them share the same account.
12. How do I contact an Administrator? Use the Contact us form.
a. Is this the same way to contact an Administrator if I disagree with an Editor / Moderator's actions/decision? Yes.
13. How do I become an Editor?
a. You can either nominate yourself by contacting an Administrator, contacting a Moderator or if the Administrators/Moderators nominate you. There is no guarantee that you'll become an Editor if you nominate yourself or if staff nominates you, a vote will be taken based on the following:
1. How active you are on the site (reporting duplicate pages, broken links, wrong lyrics/information)
2. Combination of languages spoken or if you speak a not so common language (in which we have 0 staff members like Japanese or Slovene)
3. How long you've been on the site
4. What contributions you've made (translations, annotations, solved requests, idioms etc.) - and their validity.
5. Your interactions with other users and staff
NOTE: It means that in case we have a single hint a user will cause trouble or if they have a history of clashing with others, even if they're recommended, they won't be upvoted.
14. How do I become a Moderator?
a. Users cannot nominate themselves for this role unless the Administrators give out that role for a specific reason (you are native/fluent in a language or languages that we have either 0 moderators in or inactive ones).
b. Other Moderators will vote for your promotion (if you're already an Editor though).
15. How do I become an Administrator?
a. This position is not open to the public: Regular users (of all roles), Editors, Moderators.
16. English isn't my native language, I need help from a staff member.
a. Click here
17. How do I report a staff member if I don't agree with their decision?
a. Contact an Administrator but be prepared with the following:
→ What the disagreement is about (a rule, something being unpublished etc.)
→ If you were told why something was done (a translation unpublished, authorship taken away etc.)
b. Making false reports have consequences in the long run, if you have a history of doing this you will be less likely if not at all considered for any staff positions. And reoffense may lead to blocks.
18. Can a staff member be demoted?
If a staff member is found to have abused their position, we will discuss it and, if necessary, take action such as demoting them. A staff member who has been demoted cannot ever return to their formal role and be given access to our tools, but this is a serious issue and has only happened in rare cases. If you have information that someone has abused their position, you should provide solid evidence.
SPECIAL SECTION: 🟩 Moderators
* These are issues that have been brought up by users in the past and I will go ahead and explain as best I can as to what led to each decision:
Any time a moderator does anything, it is recorded into an 'Actions log'. Why? accountability. We are held accountable for anything we do, another moderator (and administrators) can look at what a moderator has been up to throughout the site. So if you accuse a particular moderator of something and no record of such a thing happening can be found, it would then be labeled as a false accusation. Actions can not be modified (deleted/edited) by anyone except the admins). This 'Actions log' also applies to all users on this site (including the admins). Here is a screenshot of what that log looks like.
1. My comments were deleted by a moderator, why?
→ Your comments violated the rules (read First rule), were spam or where not relevant to the translation/lyrics. Comments are never 'deleted', they are 'unpublished. 'Deleted' comments are gone forever, the admins would have to attempt to retrieve them but I'm unsure if they could. 'Unpublished' comments are not visible to users, only to the staff.
2. How do I know my comments weren't unpublished and were actually deleted?
→ We can take a screenshot and send it to you if you want to know. We screenshot all comments, in the past users have thought that if the comments didn't 'exist' they would have a case against the staff, now everything must be documented.
3. Regardless of whether or not a moderator's actions were appropriate, I believe they are abusing their position.
→ If you think that someone is abusing their position as a moderator, please contact the administrators. You can find more information about what moderators can and cannot do in this thread.
4. There appears to be one specific moderator that keeps intervening, I believe they are targeting me on purpose.
→ Moderators who know the user better will be the first to step in and help, rather than a moderator who has never interacted with the user before. Each moderator has a different way of approaching a situation, but they need to be clear about what the problem is and why they're intervening.
→ All moderators have access to the same 'reports' page, anything that gets reported (comments, pages etc.) can be looked into by a mod. If a user reports something to us by PM, we will look into it.
5. A moderator doesn't even speak my language and they're intervening.
→ If a moderator who speaks your native language isn't available at the time, another who is (and is familiar with you) will intervene. Later on, a moderator who does speak your native language will be asked to look into the issue. Also, Mods talk in private, so if they're unsure, they can ask for help or advice of their peers.
→ If an issue arises between user(s) and another Moderator and no consensus is reached, a second/third/etc. Mod can join in to help.
→ Not speaking the language of the discussion doesn't excuse you from breaking the rules, especially if you're very well known to the staff already.
→ Regardless of speaking or not a language, Moderators are allowed to intervene whenever they think it is needed - always saying what was/will be done in that situation.
6. So and so told me that moderators can do this and can do that, so there's got to be more that they can actually do.
→ Unless that person is an active moderator or a demoted one, 'so and so' has lied to you. If you want to know more, feel free to message us. We are only obligated to keep things private if it is about another user.
